Monday, January 18, 2010

Brian Conley's Crocodylus/Salmo

[From Becoming Animal] 'In Crocodylus/Salmo (2002), a proposal for a massive public-art installation, Conley developed the idea for an inflatable sculpture, to be anchored seaside, whose biomorphic bulges suggest marine life but without specific reference. The shape is derived from an anatomical model of the brain of a crocodile grafted onto that of a salmon. This exaggerated entity ... grew out of Conley's thinking about biomedical technologies that allow cloning, gene-splicing, and cross-species organ-grafting.'

Related:Mutter Museum: The Mutter Museum: Of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia (comprehensive catalog)Mutter Museum Historic Medical Photographs (photo show of exhibits)Mutants: On Genetic Variety and the Human Body by Armand Marie Leroi. Viking, 2003.Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom by Sean B. Carroll. W. W. Norton and Company, 2005.Freaks of Nature: What Anomalies Tell Us About Development and Evolution by Mark S. Blumberg. Oxford University Press, 2008.Museum of Jurassic Technology [wikipedia]